Page 35 of The Phoenix (Spy Girl 6)
My eyes shoot open, and I’m wide awake as adrenaline floods my system.
I grab the phone, checking to see if it was a bad dream or if I actually received a call.
I did.
When I call Lorenzo back, it goes straight to voice mail. I throw on a robe and quietly race down to the basement of the villa, entering the secret area.
Ares is awake. “It’s starting,” he says.
“How do you know?” I ask.
He points a remote at the television, turning up the volume. A local reporter is outside a hospital, telling about a virus with a strange rash and one casualty—an Olympic athlete.
“So, they did it? They managed to poison the food, and people are getting sick?”
“I’m not sure,” Ares says, rolling in his chair back to his computer desk. “I’ve hacked into the hospital network, and I have been reading through case reports. They haven’t discovered a common thread yet, but it’s early. What the reporter doesn’t know is that three more have passed this morning.”
“What are we going to do to stop it?” I say in a panic.
Ares shakes his head. “I honestly don’t know. This isn’t my area of expertise. But we’ll be looking at it from a different perspective than the doctors will.”
“Because we know the virus’s end game?”
“Yes,” he confirms. “We know it is meant to be a pandemic event.”
“One that is supposed to wipe out a large portion of the world’s population,” I say, shaking my head. “It’s hard to comprehend. Have Society members been notified yet?”
“Good catch,” he says proudly. “And, no. Honestly, that’s sort of what I’m waiting for. The Society members will survive, and we desperately need to know how.”
“They will take to their vaults, right? Ride it out? Although I find it hard to believe five million people have vaults like yours.”
“They probably don’t, but most will at least have a safe room filled with supplies.” He pauses for a moment. “There are Society members here at the Olympics. They must have a way to protect them.”
“Like a special antibiotic or something?”
“That’s what I’m thinking,” he says.
“But how would they get it to everyone? How many members are there again?”
“About five million worldwide, but they do an exercise when you first join. They call it the hundred.”
“The hundred?”
“Yes, it’s something typically done in relationship to sales. Say you decide to sell insurance or nutritional supplements through a multilevel marketing company, one of the keys to success is you writing down your first one hundred prospects. These lists tend to start with family and move to close friends. The Society’s list is a little different. You write down the one hundred people most important to you.”
“As in the hundred you’d want to survive something like this?” I ask incredulously.
He closes his eyes and nods. “It’s a list that is updated yearly, when you pay your dues. It includes names and addresses. And, if you do the math, five million worldwide members—”
“Times one hundred …”
“Is five hundred million.”
“The amount listed on the Georgia Guidestones,” I say in awe.
“When I first joined The Echelon, there were only five hundred thousand in The Society. Hillford wanted there to be five million. It was a lofty goal, but he met it before I left the group. And, now, I understand the reasoning behind that number. I don’t know why I didn’t see it before.”
“How can you not know what they planned?” I ask, feeling frustrated. “You designed the idea.”
He stands up, pushing his chair back in anger. “I designed a perfect world. I never considered killing people to do so.”
I swallow hard. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to suggest that.”
“But I should’ve stayed,” he says with a sigh. “If I had, I would have been able to learn their plan. A grave miscalculation on my part.”
“What if you contacted one of the members now? Told them you faked your death, say you want your ring back.”
“They’d kill me. Immediately. You don’t leave The Echelon. In fact, I was shocked when Hillford let me.”
“But I could protect you,” I argue. “What if I just go kill them?”
He slowly sits back in his chair, regaining his composure. “I never should have involved you and your brother in this.”
“Ari is talented, but my training was much more intense than his. I’m going to figure it out. And I’m going to stop it. Somehow,” I say.
“I don’t know how,” he says, looking defeated. “You were trained to fight, to kill—”
“The dean used to tell me—”
“Your grandfather used to tell you,” he corrects.
“He used to tell me being a firestorm wasn’t my only great asset.”
Ares squints his eyes at me. “What did he say was?”
“My mind. My ability to solve complex problems. To quickly process scenarios and determine the correct response. He said it was something I did intuitively yet creatively. He said it was something rare. Something hardwired in my DNA.” I grin. “And, from what I’ve heard, it runs in the family.”
Ares shakes his head. “Your mother used to tease me, saying that, for someone so creative, I was predictable. She was brilliant at seeing outcomes and analyzing them. I suspect it was something she learned from a young age, something she had to do to survive in her household.”
“Yet she almost didn’t,” I say.
“I am responsible for her death. And I live with that every single day of my life.”
“And here, all this
time, I thought I was the one responsible for her death. That I was the one who should have saved her,” I say seriously.
He places his hand on the desk and takes the kind of breath that seems to fortify him. “My old man says I need to let the guilt go.”
“We both do,” I say. “But, before that, we must finish the mission you sent her on. If we can do that, if we stop this, then we can let it all go.”
He stands up and gives me a fatherly hug, although I’m not sure if it’s for his benefit or mine. “You can’t just go kill them,” he says. “Otherwise, I would have done that a long time ago. Besides, we desperately need to know what they know. But, once they tell The Society how to survive, all bets are off.”
“I can go kill them then?” I ask.
“Absolutely,” he says.
I leave the vault, go up to Daniel’s room, and gently knock on his door. He immediately opens it, fully dressed and ready to go.
“Have you seen the news this morning?” I ask him.
“No. Why?”
“There’s been an outbreak of some sort of flu. Three Olympic athletes have died from it.”
“What? When?”
“It’s just happened in the last twenty-four hours. I need to talk to your father about it. And I don’t think you should compete today. You and Lizzie should stay here.”
“I have to compete. It’s the Olympics! I’ve been training for four years! My whole life really.”
“Is it worth dying for?” I ask.
“I’m healthy. I’m not going to get sick,” he says, stubbornly ignoring the fact that he might already be.
“The athletes who died were also healthy.”
He shakes his head. “I’m going. If you want to talk to my parents, call them. But they can’t stop me either.”
I peek into the room, seeing Lizzie coming out of the bathroom, wrapped in a fluffy robe. “Maybe you can talk some sense into him.”
“What’s she talking about?” Lizzie asks Daniel as I retreat to my room and call his mother.
